With a backstory as rich as an episode of "House of Cards," the Rick Perry indictment can be a challenging case to keep up with.

With a backstory as rich as an episode of "House of Cards," the Rick Perry indictment can be a challenging case to keep up with.

Photo: San Antonio Express-News

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Here are some things you should know about who's involved, why and what happens next.

Here are some things you should know about who's involved, why and what happens next.

Photo: Eric Gay, Associated Press

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Who is Rosemary Lehmberg?

Lehmberg is the Travis County District Attorney. In 2013, she was arrested for drunk driving. After her arrest, a complaint was filed and Perry threatened to veto funding if she did not resign from the DA position. Lehmberg plead guilty to driving while intoxicated and served 45 days in prison, but kept her job.

While Lehmberg was in jail, the political pressure to resign from the district attorney position began to mount. Perry threatened to veto funding for the Public Integrity Unit if Lehmberg didn’t resign. On June 14th, 2013, Perry followed through on the threat. A special grand jury was called to look into both Perry’s veto threat and Lehmberg’s arrest. It later found Lehmberg did not commit any wrongdoing in the process of her arrest and jail time and a judge ruled she was allowed to stay in office.

Rick Perry has been the Republican Governor of Texas since 2000 and is widely believed to be planning for another presidential run after his failed attempt in 2012. This indictment is the first of a Texas governor since 1917.

is the latest addition to the legal “Dream Team” Perry has assembled to fight his indictment. Fabiani comes to the team with experience working with Democrats, having served President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. Ben Ginsberg is most famous for working for President George W. Bush during his 2000 election run. Ginsberg and Fabiani fought on opposite sides of the fence for their candidates.
Tony Buzbee, a Houston-area attorney, leads the Perry legal team. Buzbee is often described as a tough and mean trial lawyer highly experienced with taking on big businesses and winning. David Botsford is an Austin attorney specializing in criminal defense. Bobby Birchfield, like Ginsberg, also is a former general counsel to President George W. Bush. Tom Phillips rounds out the legal team as a retired Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
From left, David Botsford, Tony Buzbee, Bobby Birchfield and Ben Ginsberg (not pictured: Mark Fabiani)

A Travis County grand jury indicted the governor on two felony charges. Abuse of official capacity is a first-degree felony and carries a five-to 99-year prison sentence while coercion of a public official is a third-degree felony and is punishable by two to 10 years in prison.

On the day Gov. Perry arrived at the Travis County Jail to take his booking photo and get fingerprints done, he delivered a short statement to the public saying,
"I'm going to enter this courthouse with my head held high knowing that the actions I took were not only lawful and legal but right. If I had to do so, I would veto funding for the public integrity unit again. I’m going to fight this injustice with every fiber of my being. And we will prevail. This indictment is fundamentally a political act that seeks to achieve at the courthouse what could not be achieved at the ballot box."

Current attorney general and Gov.-elect Greg Abbott has been fairly quiet on Perry’s indictment but in agreement saying, "The governor was using his veto authority."

Current attorney general and Gov.-elect Greg Abbott has been fairly quiet on Perry’s indictment but in agreement saying, "The governor was using his veto authority."

Photo: Joel Martinez, Associated Press

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What's next for Perry?

The governor has already gone through the booking process, and entered a plea of “not guilty.” His legal team has also asked a judge to dismiss his indictment, claiming the case is an attack on his free speech rights.

AUSTIN -- Former Gov. Rick Perry is imploring a state appeals court to take quick action in his criminal case, saying it's important not only for him but for his successor, Greg Abbott.

Perry was indicted last year on accusations that he abused his veto power to try to force out a locally elected official by killing funds for a program she oversees.

The former governor believes quick action is important "because of the forthcoming conclusion of the legislative session and the corresponding minimal time frame afforded to Governor Abbott to determine in which circumstances, if any, he can exercise his constitutional right to veto items of appropriation," Perry's legal team wrote.

Perry has aggressively fought the indictment, which casts a shadow as he lays the groundwork for a formal announcement for the Republican nomination for president.

The former governor has struck out so far in trying to get the indictment dismissed by state Judge Bert Richardson, who is overseeing the case. So Perry has appealed to the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin.

In the most recent motion with the 3rd Court, filed on Friday, Perry's lawyers asked for expedited action without oral argument.

Oral argument was suggested as appropriate by the special prosecutor in the case, Michael McCrum of San Antonio. He said the complexity of the case warrants it, and that argument would likely involve a discussion of the limits and abuses "of power in our representative democracy and how it can be regulated."

Perry's legal team disagreed, saying the appropriate action is clear and wouldn't need "the type of open-ended philosophical discussion" that it says McCrum is proposing.

If oral argument is necessary, "Governor Perry implores the Court to expedite this case and set that argument for the very earliest possible date," Perry's team said.

Perry lawyer Tony Buzbee said Monday he doesn't want oral argument "because I believe the issues are clear, and the setting of oral argument would unnecessarily delay matters."

Perry's indictment stems from his 2013 promise to veto funding for the Public Integrity Unit overseen by Democratic Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg unless she resigned after behaving belligerently after a driving-while-intoxicated arrest.

Lehmberg, who served jail time after pleading guilty, stayed in office, and Perry killed the funding.

Texans for Public Justice, a government accountability group, filed a complaint saying Perry overstepped by trying to force the resignation of a locally elected official.

A grand jury in August indicted Perry on abuse of official capacity, a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years in prison, and coercion of a public servant.

Richardson has said the second count as presented in the indictment was instead a Class A misdemeanor. McCrum has since reiterated that it's being presented as a third-degree felony.

Perry's team referred in unflattering terms to McCrum in its latest filing, saying that Abbott "certainly deserves legal clarification that he can exercise his constitutional veto power without fear that some misguided prosecutor will lead a grand jury into an ill-conceived and spurious indictment based solely upon that prosecutor's personal disagreement with the propriety, wisdom and motives underlying a particular veto."

McCrum, asked if he had a response, said, "The word 'misguided' follows a pattern of unnecessary comments by Mr. Perry's lawyers. It's unnecessary to be personally derogatory about another lawyer. I don't know how they could make a comment about whether or not the grand jury's decision was ill-conceived when everything before the grand jury was confidential. They have no idea what happened in there."

Buzbee previously has been critical of McCrum for comments about Perry, when McCrum looked askance at Perry's courthouse rally when he was booked, referring to him as "smirking" and said he had made "a mockery of our system of justice."